Thanks for the warm welcome guys. You're already a bad influence on me! I did the deal for the M1.0t and M1.5t this morning. They're outside sitting in my trunk which is making it really hard to focus on work today! I'll get some pictures posted of everything sometime this weekend.

Hey everyone! Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Nick and I hail from northern Illinois. I've been into audio since I was a little kid but never really knew what I was doing...still don't! I first got into Carver stuff a year or two ago. I was cruising craigslist for gear and found some old Kef speakers. I'm of English heritage, so I'm a bit of a sucker for Kef and other British audio gear. So, I go over to this guy's place and he plays these Kef's for me on a random system he has set up. They sound awesome, so I pay the man and take them home. Hook them up to my janky old Denon receiver and I was so disappointed. I was trying to figure out what kind of black magic he pulled on me. While I was there, he had tried to sell me some equipment he had lying around. He had a Parasound pre-amp and amp combo and an Onkyo pre-amp with a Carver AV-405. I'd never heard of any of this stuff, but I called him right back and said I'd buy it all to take advantage of the old Kefs. What little did I know about the slippery slope had just fell down.
I started reading about Carver and got hooked. Not long after, I got myself a C-1 off of eBay and loved it. Next thing I know, I've got the thing torn apart and I'm doing the billD mods. Now I've got this amazing pre-amp and the AV-405 that has a dead front channel so I'm running my system with the one good channel and the center...not ideal. I've pretty much settled on swapping it out for an M500t because I can't get over how pretty it is and who doesn't love some old school power displays??? Just yesterday I thought I had found an M500t in town but, alas, it was sold an hour before I emailed him. But then, he threw a wrench in my plan. He says he's got a 1.5t with a weak channel and a 1.0t with a hum. Says he'd sell either of them to me for $100. So, now I'm really tempted to buy them both and see if I can fix them up. What do you guys think?
Anyway, here's a summary of the jank-tastic system I'm running right now:
Pre-amp/amp
Carver C-1, BillD recap/upgrade
Carver AV-405 with a dead channel
Speakers:
KEF Q300 bookshelfs on stands
Sources:
B&O Beogram 3404
iPad/Dragonfly Red DAC